Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
February 2, 2005, Wednesday

AN AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER WOUNDED AS A RESULT OF A FUSILLADE FROM THE
DIRECTION OF ARMENIA

Azerbaijani soldier Fuad Shikhiyev was wounded in a fusillade from
the direction of Armenia at the area of confrontation between the
Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces in the vicinity of Agdam. The
soldier has been hospitalized and is in stable condition, the
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

This proved to be the second similar incident over past several days.
Azerbaijani soldier Adyl Mamedov was killed in a fusillade from the
direction of Armenia on January 26.

Source: Turan news agency (Baku), January 31, 2005

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 2, 2005 Wednesday

Russian FM to visit Armenia in second half of February

By Ksenia Kaminskaya

MOSCOW

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “will pay a visit to Armenia
in the second half of February prior to his trip to Georgia,” Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said on Wednesday.

According to the official, “the visit will be paid by the Russian
foreign minister before his visit to Georgia that is scheduled for
February 18.”

Earlier, Yakovenko said that the minister planned to tour all the CIS
capitals. Sergei Lavrov “plans to visit all the countries of the
Commonwealth to discuss the CIS reforms.” Russia “is heading this
work in the Commonwealth and is now collecting proposals from the
member-states.”

On Wednesday, Lavrov rounded off his talks with the leaders of
Azerbaijan in Baku.

Agence France Presse — English
January 31, 2005 Monday 4:41 AM GMT

You say you want a revolution? Ukraine group ready to change
ex-Soviet world

KIEV

Flush with victory of the “orange revolution,” the leaders of a
Ukraine youth group have decided to export their know-how to other
former Soviet republics in a move that an ever-hardline Russia has
noted with concern.

“Think of it as a democratic spetsnaz,” Vladislav Kaskiv, smiling
sheepishly, told AFP, using a Russian and Ukrainian term for an elite
special forces unit.

Kaskiv is one of the leaders of the Pora (It is time) youth group,
one of the key players in last November’s “orange” protests that
swept aside a Moscow-friendly regime in favor of a pro-Western leader
after a disputed election.

It was the second year in a row, after Georgia’s rose revolution,
that such a scenario occurred on former Soviet territory — a fact
that Moscow, which has been trying to rebuild its influence there,
has duly noted.

“The repeat of such scenarios is possible both inside the countries
of the CIS and beyond,” Vladimir Rushailo, Russia’s former national
security chief, warned last week.

Having received coaching from fellow youth activists from Serbia,
Slovakia and Georgia ahead of their revolution, Kaskiv and cohorts
have decided to set up a center to help support similar movements in
the former Soviet territory.

“We’ve talked with practically all leaders of democratic movements in
the region, who have agreed with the idea 120 percent,” he said,
adding that the group has also received pledges of financing and was
hoping to have the center up and running by the end of the month.

Unlike Belgrade’s Center for Non-violent Resistance set up by members
of the Otpor youth movement, the Kiev one would unite all of the
countries that have “been successful in democratic makeovers:
Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine…
to provide support for democratic movements in the region.”

“Russia should be put first and foremost, then Belarus, Moldova,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,” Kaskiv said.

The list of targets reads like the Kremlin’s worst nightmare and it
has made a lot of leaders in former Soviet republics nervous.

“There will be no rose, orange or banana revolutions,” declared in
early January Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko, a hardliner
who is among the top targets for democracy warriors in the former
Soviet Union.

Leaders of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have likewise rejected the
possibility of “the Georgian or Ukrainian scenario” taking place on
their territory.

But others aren’t so sure.

“The events in Ukraine have inspired a level of politicization among
the Russian youth I haven’t seen in years,” Yegor Gaidar, a leading
Russian liberal and author of Moscow’s market reforms, told the
Financial Times in December.

“This is the first stone thrown at the edifice of Russia’s managed
democracy,” he said.

Youth groups like Ukraine’s Pora have played a key role in the
peaceful protests that have swept aside hardline regimes in former
Communist satellite states, by rallying the most fearless and
idealistic part of the population.

During the protests in Kiev, the tent city set up in part by Pora in
the center of the capital was filled with democracy activists from
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and others.

“Ukraine will triumph, and then we will,” one Belarussian told AFP in
the heat of the protests. Ukraine’s “victory will inspire us.”

That’s just what Kaskiv and company are hoping for.

“The main thing that these people need… is a psychological base, an
example that gives you a point of support and the confidence that
change is possible,” Kaskiv said.

“For me personally the situation in Georgia had a huge psychological
impact. Because it confirmed that everything is possible.”

Kaskiv dismissed suggestions that Ukraine’s example would lead Russia
and others to clamp down on the groups and take them out.

“We had the same thing here. But as soon as they began to tighten the
screws, we attracted support from business, the intelligentsia,
bureaucrats… The situation just detonated the process.”

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 1, 2005 Tuesday

Stepanakert ready to cooperate with OSCE mission

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Stepanakert is “ready to create all necessary conditions” for the
work of the mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) and “provide a possibility for visiting any region
of interest to the monitoring group,” President of the unrecognised
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Arkady Gukasyan said receiving the
OSCE mission members who arrived in Stepanakert on Sunday.

According to him, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities are open for
cooperation with the OSCE mission” in collecting of facts about
Armenian settlements in the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Gukasyan also expressed the hope that the OSCE mission report will
promote the establishment of a constructive atmosphere around the
Karabakh conflict peaceful settlement.

According to the mission head, director of the OSCE department in the
German Foreign Ministry Emily Haber, the mission is rather of
technical nature and does not pursue the goal of giving political
assessment to the situation.

In accordance with the trip plan, the OSCE mission every day will
visit one of seven regions of Azerbaijan occupied by the Armenian
side as a result of combat operations of 1992-1994.

Along with experts from Germany, Italy, Finland and Sweden the
monitoring group also comprises co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group of
Russia, France and the United States.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 2, 2005 Wednesday 4:19 AM Eastern Time

Russia hopes compromise to be reached in Karabakh settlement

By Kseniya Kaminskaya, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia
actively participates in the settlement in the mostly Armenian
populated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, and expects that a
compromise will be reached in that conflict.

“Russia actively participates in the Karabakh settlement as well as
in the settlement of conflicts in Georgia and Moldova,” Lavrov said
after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov.

As Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia “has been concentrated
for the past few months on the issue of a peace settlement of the
Karabakh conflict, taking into consideration the ‘Prague Process’.”

In 2004, the Co-Chairs (Russia, France and the United States)
initiated a series of meetings in Prague between the Foreign
Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The “Prague Process” was
designed to reinvigorate dialogue between the sides.

“The Russian co-chairman of the Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh, Yuri
Merzlyakov, has recently met with American colleagues,” Lavrov said.
“We expect that the process will end in a compromise,” he emphasized.

Focusing on conflicts in Georgia, the minister said “Moscow comes out
in favor of the implementation of all earlier reached agreements on
Abkhazia, including the Sochi agreements” as well as in favor of
“stabilization of the situation in South Ossetia”.

The Sochi agreements include a return of refugees to the Gali
district of Georgia’s self-style republic, resumption of rail traffic
from Sochi to Tbilisi via Abkhazia, and the renovation of the Inguri
Hydroelectric Station.

“So far as the Dniester Region settlement is concerned, Moscow
believes the memorandum of Dmitry Kozak is a basis for an agreement,”
he said. According to the minister “all components exist for the
settlement of the Dniester Region issue”.

He said Russia would keep working on those settlements with due
regard for its status. In reply to a query about contacts between
Baku and NATO, Lavrov remarked that Azerbaijan “chooses foreign
policy partners proceeding from its interests”. He also stressed that
“Russia enjoys good relations with NATO, which reflects our
interests”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 2, 2005 Wednesday

Karabakh settlement may boost economic coop in region – FM

By Sevindzh Abdullayeva and Viktor Shulman

BAKU

The resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will create
conditions for the development of economic cooperation in the region,
said Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov, presidential
special envoy at the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

Speaking at NATO’s seminar, “Economy, Security and Defence”, on
Wednesday, Azimov said, “There is certain progress in the talks on
the solution to the Karabakh problem.” The sides are holding
negotiations on possibilities of withdrawing troops from all occupied
territories, restoring communications, and returning refugees to
their homes. “Then discussions will focus on the normalisation of
relations between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of
Nagorno-Karabakh, between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” the diplomat said.

“Relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia, that have agreed to carry
out different projects in the energy sector, are an excellent model
of cooperation in the region,” he said. “The third country of the
region is losing its opportunities” due to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict,” Azimov said.

At the same time, he stressed, “Territorial compromises are
inadmissible and unacceptable in this aspect.” “Such conflict cannot
be settled on such base,” he added.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s initiatives on the
settlement of the South Ossetian conflict “may become an excellent
factor for Azerbaijan that may give an impetus to the resolution of
such conflicts,” Azimov pointed out.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
February 2, 2005 Wednesday

Moscow-Baku partnership meets interests of peoples – FM

By Ksenia Kaminskaya and Viktor Shulman

BAKU

The development of strategic partnership between Russia and
Azerbaijan meets the interests of the peoples of the two countries,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Lavrov and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov held talks on
Wednesday to discuss bilateral relations, including Year of
Azerbaijan in Russia to open this month, the situation in the
Caucasus and interaction at the international arena.

Mamedyarov shared Sergei Lavrov’s view under which the development of
strategic partnership between Russia and Azerbaijan “meets the
interests of the peoples of the two countries and is an important
factor of peace and stability in the Caucasus.”

The Russian minister met Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev and
Prime Minister Artur Razi-zade. “Relations with Russia are very
important for Azerbaijan,” Aliyev said. He praised “political
contacts, in particular between the leadership of the two countries.”
The Azerbaijani president noted the positive development of
cooperation in the energy sector and humanitarian interaction. “This
has a positive impetus on our relations and processes in the region,”
the president said.

The talks focused on the agreements reached as part of the
Azerbaijani president’s visit to Russia in February 2004. The sides
stressed the need “to take concrete measures to develop business
partnership in order to double trade turnover in the future.”

The negotiations touched on international issues, including “steps
towards strengthening interaction in the fight against international
terrorism.” The foreign ministers of the two countries called for
“stepping up cooperation within the U.N., the CIS, the OSCE and the
Council of Europe.” They discussed problems related to increasing the
U.N. effectiveness and its reform.

Lavrov and Mamedyarov supported the Prague process of negotiations
between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan with the
involvement of co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group on
Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. The ministers exchanged views on working
out the Caspian Sea legal status, holding the 2nd Caspian summit,
principles of the military activity on sea and building underwater
arteries.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
January 30, 2005 Sunday

Garegin II calls for marking 1,600 jubilee of Armenian alphabet

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, has
issued an encyclical on the occasion of the 1,600 anniversary of the
Armenian alphabet to be marked later this year. The document was read
out at a liturgy service in Holy Echmiadzin on Sunday.

Sixteen centuries have passed since the day when enlightener and
scientist Archimandrite Mesrop Mashtots invented the Armenian written
language for Armenians to read the Bible in their native tongue,
Garegin II said. “St. Mesrop’s alphabet made the Armenian language
immortal. That golden root gave life to the beautiful tree of
Armenian culture, which unites Armenians all over the world by their
Christian originality and spirituality directed into the future,” he
said.

The Catholicos called on people to cherish the Armenian written
language and school “so that our fatherland and Holy Church live
forever.”

He also called on archpriests and clerics of the Armenian Church and
all believers to celebrate the jubilee.

The Armenian language, a separate branch of the Indo-European family
of languages, has a 39-letter alphabet.

Agence France Presse — English
January 30, 2005 Sunday 5:25 AM GMT

Relatives of massacred Armenians win New York life insurance claims

YEREVAN

Just a kindergartner during the 1915-1917 massacre of Armenians,
Petros Petrosyan, who saw his parents and baby sister killed in the
dying years of the Ottoman Empire, never expected a big Manhattan
life insurance payout.

But Petros knew little of a New York policy his father took out in
those brutal days that could now pay off after nearly a century and
so many generations.

Petros’s daughter-in-law Anaid is trying to cash in on an
extraordinary case that has startled the Manhattan bankers and
thrilled the survivors of a period in history that nearly erased much
of Christian Armenia from the map.

For the New York Life Insurance company has finally pledged to pay
back what it owed to relatives of those killed during one of the
starkest periods of World War I.

“When we found the name of my husband’s grandfather in the insurance
company’s lists, we were surprised and thrilled,” the 50-year-old
Anaid confessed.

“None of us could hope that there would come a day when the victims
and their families could reclaim at least a straw from the haystack
we lost in west Armenia,” she added.

According to a US court ruling of July 30, 2004, the New York Life
Insurance would have to honor its obligations to all who can prove
their blood ties to those named in the company’s lists.

Armenia’s justice ministry has arranged for a group of lawyers to
help those seeking to apply for the compensation to put together the
required documents and dispatch them to New York before the February
28 deadline.

However, the work launched in September proved hard, with many
survivors having escaped with only clothes on their back, leaving all
documents and insurance policies behind.

“We accept applications from people, we open cases, seek proof in the
archives,” the ministry’s spokesman Ara Sagatelyan said.

Such proof includes birth and marriage certificates, letters,
photographs, and books published in those times and telling of
various families and people.

“As of now over 700 people applied to us, having found their
relatives in the US company’s lists, and only nine of those still had
the policies. There are also cases of people that have the policies
but their names are not listed,” Sagatelyan said.

Over 180 ready applications had already been sent on, he said.

The New York Life Insurance had pledged to pay a total of 20 million
dollars, with the victims’ relatives due to receive 11.9 million,
three million to be handed over to Armenian charity groups, and the
rest given to the Armenian Church.

However, it was not yet clear how much money would be claimed, as
many of those listed perished along with their whole families.

Turkey, which formed the nucleus of the former Ottoman Empire, has
disputed the scale and nature of the killing of Armenians, and railed
against the term “genocide” used by surviving Armenians and their
descendants.

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have died between
1915 and 1917 in the last years of the Ottoman empire.

“In refusing to admit the fact of genocide, Turkey also fears that
Armenians would call for compensation of their lost property and
reclaim the money Armenians held in Turkish banks for their heirs,”
Turkey expert Akob Chakryan told AFP.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
January 31, 2005, Monday

ARMENIA AND NAGORNY KARABAKH HELD NEGOTIATIONS

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan met with Arkady Gukasyan, leader
of the Nagorny Karabakh republic, on Wednesday. The leaders discussed
the socio-economic situation in Nagorny Karabakh and programs of
co-operation between Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh in 2005. The major
part of the budget of Nagorny karabakh consists of the credit given
by Yerevan.

Source: Kommersant, January 27, 2005, p. 9

Translated by Alexander Dubovoi